


Still Here

by whatsanapocalae



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Tentacle Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 21:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16731249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsanapocalae/pseuds/whatsanapocalae
Summary: Just a little thing based off of a drawing Chibi--raiden did I don't think they posted it or I would link it. I absolutely love their OC, Iris, and wanted to write about him, so here's a bit about Stefano's gooy doppleganger protecting and being protected by Sebastian.





	Still Here

He was on a mission, but it was an odd one, one that didn’t take all of his attention, that didn’t have him racing. He just needed to clear out the area, get it ready for Hoffman and the stable field emitter so they could get through to Theodore. They were so close he could taste it. He was doing pretty well, had a good amount of supplies for once, and he’d sneak killed enough of those lost souls that he hadn’t attracted any of the bigger evils, those priests with the flame throwers or anything else. 

He was on his way back to the safe house, to make some more syringes from the herbs he’d found when he saw him, standing about half a block away, digging in the garbage. At first he thought he was Stefano, but there was no way that Stefano would do something like that, or would stand so hunched. 

Sebastian waved a hand to catch his attention but, when Iris stood to return the greeting, there was no emotion on his face. It was hard to read him anyway and Sebastian knew that there was something to do with the fluid that was constantly oozing down his face, that it changed color depending on his emotions, but Sebastian had yet to learn such a subtle language. It was a necessary thing though, as he spoke so quietly and he was mumbling something in Sebastian’s direction, something short, a single syllable that he repeated over and over again. 

Sebastian kept moving towards him. Whatever he was saying, it must have bee important, because his features were shifting, what little of them he could see, and seemed to be very focused on that one word. Then the illusion of clothing, made up of the same material the rest of him seemed to be made from, stretched and pulled apart, long tendrils of dark slime spreading out and Sebastian knew, even before Iris was doing his best to scream that word out at him, making a horribly rasping sound, was. 

“RUN!”

Sebastian was running then, switching ninety degrees, and heading down a side alley. Iris hadn’t changed in so long, Sebastian had come to trust that he wouldn’t, that he was safe. He had gotten comfortable with the monster. But now he was changing, and Sebastian was sure that he was after him. 

He looked back for a moment, expecting to see the pile of goo, tentacles, and eyes to be right behind him, but Iris was nowhere to be seen. There were no monsters behind him at all. He knew that he hadn’t lost him, that Iris had to know exactly where he was, but he wasn’t in danger. He stopped running, standing still for a moment, and tried to understand what it meant. He didn’t need to think though, because he could hear her, only a block or two away, another monster of Stefano’s design, cackling. 

He had turned into a monster, had told Sebastian to get out of the way, because he’d seen that women with the saw coming for him. Iris had known that Sebastian was in trouble before he knew it himself. He turned on his heel, heading back running faster now than he had before. Iris was clever and fast and terrifying, but Sebastian knew that he was in over his head. Sebastian always felt like he was in over his head when he thought those things. 

He made it back to the street, finding Iris half pinned under her, some of his tendrils wrapped around some of her heads, more of them wrapped around the saw that she wielded trying to force it away from his neck. She was laughing, he was silent. She was getting the saw closer, by inches, even though he pushed against it with tendrils and his over-sized hand. 

Sebastian pulled out the crossbow, aimed, and fired. He got it, easily, into her opposite shoulder, but then it went red and Sebastian cursed as she howled in response. He hadn’t been paying attention, too much adrenaline and not enough planning. He should have paid better attention to what bolt he’d grabbed. 

She screeched as it went off, the explosion enough to tear a few of the Lost apart, but on her it just left a deep smoldering crater. She was off of Iris though and that was good, but that had her attention on Sebastian. She threw her head back and laughed before charging him. Sebastian dashed back, going down the alley once more, tossing back more explosive bolts behind him. 

She was getting closer. Her steps were longer than his and she didn’t have to worry about getting tired. Sebastian did. He had to slow down, take breaks, because he knew that if he let himself run fully he would have to stop for a few moments to catch his breath, and that would be his death. He could hear her getting closer, could hear the explosives go off, louder each time, closer. She wasn’t going down. 

The last explosion was so close that it caught Sebastian in the back, knocking him forward, and he tumbled, his temple smacking against the edge of one of the few garbage cans that awaited plunder. He fell to the ground, rolling over, hissing at the burning holes in his back. He dragged out his pistol. It had bullets in it, it had to. 

Her heads were falling off in clumps, her body falling apart around her, but still she was laughing. She raised the saw, even if she fell she was going to take Sebastian with her. A tentacle slid around her chest, pulling her back though, and Sebastian had his shot. He took it. The last of the threads holding her together gave up, and she fell in a pile of pieces, her saw worthless at her side. 

Sebastian breathed, muscles relaxing as the adrenaline started to fade. That was bad though, because there was still a monster there and he had to run, had to get out of there before Iris turned on him. His vision was swimming from the hit to his head and he was sure that he was bleeding. 

Iris’ hands were on him, no one hand was on him, and it was the size of a normal hand, and he was trying to pull Sebastian to his feet, but their coordination was off and they both failed at it until Sebastian grabbed hold of the wall at his side and pulled himself up. Iris was human, or at least, in his humanoid form, and, the moment Sebastian was upright he slumped against the wall. He seemed more wet than usual and he was trembling slightly and he wasn’t looking at Sebastian. 

He was mumbling something. Sebastian had to lean forward to hear what it was. “Hurts. Hurts. It hurts. Sebsthn. Hurts.” 

Sebastian looked at him, looked at all of him, and found that he was leaning in a way that shoved the ooze of his body out in a line, though his closer shoulder was also a mass of it. 

“It’s okay,” Sebastian put a hand on his head, the driest part of him he’d found, running his fingers through his stringy, filthy hair. “It’s okay. Let’s get you to a safe house.”

When Sebastian went to him though, to help him leave the wall, he found that the pain wasn’t in the shoulder but in his chest. He gasped and shuddered, the remnants of his face falling behind a veil of ooze as the wound fell open, revealing itself to Sebastian. The saw had gone through Iris’s clavicle and down, almost all of the way to his bellybutton, and it had gone all of the way through. It opened up like a fan, the dark red goo stretching and ripping as it did. 

“Hurs. Hrs. Hurts. Sebsthn. Hiiirs.” He was repeating it, looping it, and it was clear that any thought that he had was replaced with the pain of this. If Iris had been alive, fully, he wouldn’t have survived this. Sebastian couldn’t imagine how much it must have hurt. 

“It’s not far,” Sebastian wrapped his arm around Iris’ chest, squeezed beside the shoulder that was burned from Sebastian’s bolt. He shoved the damaged body back together, held it tight, and started to walk. “I’ll help you.”

Iris’ hand was in Sebastian’s shirt, twisting the soft henly. The other one was dead at his side. There was so much ooze, Sebastian could feel it coating his arm, making part of him unmistakable from Iris’ body. It smelled of rot and of turpentine and blood. Sebastian was still seeing echoes, odd shadows, and part of his vision was blurry, but he was leading a man who’d until recently been blind and only had one eye to begin with, so he still considered himself lucky. 

The safe house was only a few blocks and, now that Sykes was gone, it was a safe place for Iris too, as long as he was invited. Sebastian pushed his way through both doors, holding onto Iris until he could get him to the desk. Iris sat on top of it, still mumbling quietly. 

Sebastian didn’t know what to do, if he had to get Iris’ clothes out of the way, though they seemed to be made up of the same stuff that the rest of him was, or if he needed a syringe to heal, or if there was anything other than time that he could give him. 

“Why did you do that?” Sebastian asked, holding him together gently, rubbing a less damaged part of his arm to try to distract him from the pain. “You could have gotten yourself killed. You almost did, by the looks of it.”

“Sebsthn,” he groaned, his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Want to… keep… safe. Hurts. Seb as then is hurts.”

Sebastian didn’t care about that. He probably had a concussion, but Iris was in much worse shape. “That’s fine. It’s okay. I’m more worried about you right now.”

The ooze coming from Iris’ face shifted to a more neutral color, more of a blue, and he sounded so distraught as Sebastian held him together, watching as the ooze stitched itself together into a dark and nasty scab, even over his suit jacket. Seemed it was just going to be time then. 

“Seb as ton. No need. No.” He seemed even more desperate now. “Seb as shun hurts. Takes care. Please. Please.”

Sebastian didn’t want to let go, didn’t want what progress Iris had healed to be undone. He took Iris’ free hand in his own and wrapped it around the other shoulder, so he could hold himself together instead. He didn’t want to take a step away, didn’t want to stop helping, but he knew that Iris wasn’t going to stop until he did so. 

He hadn’t even walked half way across the room when he heard Iris’ sniffling, and he turned to hear him speak, a little louder but still so raspy and quiet that Sebastian had to work to hear him. 

“Leaving?” 

Sebastian wanted to go back to him, to cradle him and make him feel safe. It was weird, Iris was a monster made out of corpses and Stefano’s insane artistic vision. He shouldn’t have cared so much. But Iris was his own person and he was sweet in an odd way and he was so desperately hurt by something that he wouldn’t discuss and he cared, so deeply, for Sebastian. It was impossible for Sebastian to not want to help him. 

“No, no, I’m just going over here, I’ll be right back,” he promised. “It’s going to be alright.”

Iris didn’t stop him again when he went to the coffee maker, poured a cup and drank a few sips. The mug was warm and welcome in his hands. Iris was always so cold. He brought the cup back and, when he took Iris’s place in holding his body together, he handed it over. Iris clutched it like it was something precious. 

“You can drink that, if you want. It always makes me feel better,” Sebastian offered, gesturing to his face. The cut and the bruise were already healed and he didn’t have any problems with his vision. Even the burns on his back were gone. 

Iris just looked into the cup. “Not allowed,” he said, so quietly, almost ashamed. 

“Not allowed?” Sebastian could feel annoyance creeping into his voice. He wanted to know everything that Stefano had done to Iris and make him pay for it. There was such an unsettling hurt around him at all times. 

“Not real coffee. Ammercan,” Iris explained, “Can’t eat. Can’t drink. All comes up again.”

“Nothing?” Sebastian asked. He wondered if there was a body out there, if Iris only existed in STEM or if Stefano had made him out of a real breathing person. “Don’t you get hungry?”

Iris shook his head. It was obvious that they were going to be there for a while and Sebastian looked around, either for something they could use as a splint or for a chair. Sykes’ chair was too short for him to sit and hold onto Iris like this but there were a few other rooms attached. There might have been something in one of those. 

“Leaving?” Iris asked once more. He hadn’t even moved yet, just looked around. Iris had some major issues. Sebastian wanted to know who had given him those but he was certain he knew the answer. 

“Relax,” he offered, bringing up his hand to run it along Iris’s jaw, to comfort him, he hoped. He couldn’t find it through all of the liquid coming down his face. He wiped some of the ooze away though, to see a bit of skin underneath for a moment, as well as some of his hair. If he was lucky and he worked hard enough at it, he thought he might actually be able to see Iris’ face. Iris shook his head though, almost violently, and knocked Sebastian’s hand away, covering his face once more. Another sensitive subject then. “I’m not going anywhere. Concentrate on my voice.”

“Hurts.” Iris said once more, but Sebastian was pulling himself up to sit beside him and Iris leaned his entire weight on Sebastian’s chest, letting Sebastian’s body hold his own together. “Too good to me.”

Sebastian ran a hand down the opposite arm. “I’m not good enough to you,” he corrected, pressing a small kiss Iris’ filthy scalp. “You’ve been through too much.”

Iris shook his head, keeping it down. He didn’t want Sebastian to see him. Sebastian wouldn’t press. 

“Tell me some thing Seb as than?” he asked, “Cons en tate on your foice?” 

So Sebastian told him something. He told him about Lily. He held him together and he told him about what had happened when she was little, just a tiny thing, little stories. At one point Iris even snorted at one of Sebastian’s bad jokes. It was nice, to reminisce, to talk about when things were good. He wasn’t sure if Stefano could hear them, if he could see through Iris, but if he did then, perhaps, Sebastian would get him to understand why he was doing all this. That was just an afterthought. Iris seemed to enjoy his stories. Iris listened. 

He held on a little tighter.


End file.
